Presentation of the Centre

The Centre conducts and promotes research on how globalization processes affect development in the South, and seeks to identify appropriate domestic and international policy responses.

The Centre seeks to integrate and develop the research on globalization at the University of Gothenburg. The Centre employs post-doc researchers, arranges seminars and conferences, and supports research projects on globalization and development. The ultimate goal is to produce top-quality research within the field of globalization and development.

Since its start in 2009 the Centre has supported and will continue to support a broad range of research activities on globalization and development, but during the next five years the primary focus will be on research on

Global Governing for Sustainable Development: How to achieve the sustainable development goals.

The starting point for our research agenda is that the global community has agreed to work for sustainable global development at the same time as the global system that is to help bring this about looks more fragile and less sustainable than it has done for a long time. It is noted in the SDG documents that each country has the primary responsibility for its own economic and social development, but that this can be facilitated by assistance from outside and by the organisation of the global social, economic and political systems. It is the latter dimensions that will be the focus of the GCGD research programme. Successful political actions to reduce injustices in the world and to achieve the SDGs depend on the provision of scientific facts and understanding of the issues involved including the ethical trade-offs. Our research agenda will focus on two types of international collaboration that can contribute to the reduction of the huge economic and social gaps, namely (1) development cooperation and (2) global governance via international policies, institutions and organizations.

The research programme of the GCGD for the coming five years draws on the SDGs focusing on global policy responses to development challenges in the South. The research programme will address the following key questions:

• How is global governance organized to support enhanced global justice?

• In a changing and more challenging global context, what are the major and emerging actors, institutions, and strategies relating to the SDG and what are the most important effects of these efforts?

• How should SDG-activities be organized to promote sustainable development in poor countries?

The research programme will cover development cooperation and global governance. We may broadly distinguish four development cooperation channels. Those are traditional bilateral donors, multilateral organisations, non-governmental organisations, and firms, as well as multi-stakeholder channels that combine them. We are interested in understanding how their roles and behaviour change and what the implications are for the impacts of their activities on the ability to achieve the SDG-goals in poor countries. Many of the problems identified cannot be solved at the national level. We need to understand how decisions are taken by nation states, in international collaboration, or in global systems and in particular we will analyse how global governance structures can contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.

The centre will follow the SDG-work. The goals have been set up in a complex political process, where so far limited attention has been given to the challenges of measuring progress and following up implementation. We will seek to contribute to the measuring of achievement of the SDGs. This will require methodological developments and the implementation of such approaches. The aim of the GCGD is to contribute, both theoretically and empirically, to increased understanding of the impact of the new development cooperation and global governance agenda on sustainable development in poor countries. The programme will thus provide new insights about how development aid and international collaboration can be arranged as to promote sustainable development.